Hey
@JoePaps, welcome to AudioKarma!
I've had very similar experience(s) with Ohm Acoustics in the past, regarding their timelines. Or lack thereof. And seemingly lack of order behind the scenes sometimes. Deriving from updating a myriad of legacy speakers I would purchase through the years. I sold many, recently C2's.. Again. But I still have H's, Ayes, Walsh 2's, a custom Walsh 4000 center short & an early subwoofer of theirs, the N2. This was largely before John had passed. So In my experience, nothing at Ohm has changed or gone down hill there. Lol. It appears it's business as usual. I believe it's because of the duality of their business model. And their primary focus remains the Walsh line fabrication and sales. And that's fine. I would just like more transparency about the timeline most of all.
I've had my gripes with them over the years. But I do take a bit of a nitpick with the idea that Ohm is straight out trying to scam you. It does appear that there was a miscommunication between themselves, but they are operating out of 2 different locations since John died. I honestly can't say I'm surprised. Not that it's an excuse. However they have been in business since 1971(?) and were major pioneers on the forefront of the HiFi explosion. They've always been customer satisfaction forward and provide excellent sound at attractive prices. Including the refurbishing and servicing of legacy speakers, which very few companies still do.
The original woofers in your L's to me look like old friends. I've seen so many of them. I know their sound. But they're tired boss.
The refurbished L's that were sent to you are completely new. I've never seen them before in the wild. The cast basket structure is totally new. It looks very nice and appears nicely finished.
The woofer material looks very similar to that of the type they use for the L2. They very well may have carried that back over to the L model in favor of material longevity. As it appears there's also a heavy duty butyl rubber surround attached. That thing is never going to break down over time (like 50 years + with hard use), and has a nice long excursion capability to move air with lower distortion through the port. The felt dust cover are the new type that Evan said himself jokingly "only come with the entire woofer", when asked about providing just the caps as a legacy repair.
Then finally comes the magnet and motor structure. The wires hanging off look pretty damn heavy duty and appear exactly like the type I'm familiar with that attach from an SBA. Ditto the spider. Though the magnet structure itself, is totally new. We can't see the interior motor (the copper voice coil windings etc.) but I'm willing to bet that there is an inductor in the donut area and the rest of the cross over network is built into and around the frame. Very much like a professional in-wall or in-ceiling speaker one would install in a custom home audio or theater project. In my line of work in the past, as an installer these are the norm.
It's a cleaner look and I think I like it better. I've had problems in the past with the double sided tape giving up, and letting the SBA loose inside the cabinet. I'd have to remove the woofer and do my own thing with it. As I also had to do with the port adapters for my ayes. It seems they still never got that straight - & that is unacceptable. Sorry to hear about that because it is a legitimate issue.
For reference here is a picture of the rear from one of the woofers from my updated H's :
View attachment 3594786
I'd say yours looks a lot more neat.
The fronts :
View attachment 3594787
I hope this helps shed some light on things! I genuinely do not think Ohm is trying to do anything under handed here. What I do think they're doing, is continuing to be themselves. As a company & their speakers ; think of them like they're like you're extremely brilliant friend. They're really fun to be around, you can listen to them for hours and almost any topic is something you'd be interested to touch on. But their time management / organizational skills suck with a capital S!
All the best Joe. Install those bad boys with confidence & as John would say, Good Listening!
